The Wreckers Read Online Free PDF

ago this month.”
    Every tiny cove had a name, each for the cargo of a doomed ship. In the mile of shore, Mawgan named sixteen wrecks.
    “It’s a haunted coast,” he said. “Most men won’t ride here at night.”
    Sunset wasn’t far off. But at a place he called Sugar Bay, Mawgan stopped to water the horse. He let it drink from a little freshet that dribbled down from the moor to flow thin and sparkling, like a slug’s trail, over the stones. I slid down the animal’s rump and scooped handfuls of water from the crevices in the rock.
    “So,” said Mawgan, watching from the saddle, “you’re a sailor, are you?”
    “Not really,” said I. “This was my first voyage.”
    He smiled faintly. “Where did you go?”
    “Greece,” I said, “Italy, and Spain.”
    “Nowhere else?”
    I splashed water on my face and then looked up at him through a rainbow. It seemed he was glowering, but when I wiped my eyes I saw only a smile on his face.
    “Tell me,” he said. He shifted in the saddle. “Where did you load those barrels of wine?”
    “Spain,” I said.
    “What port?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Come on, lad!” He laughed, flinging out his arms. Yet he sounded impatient—nearly angry. “You must know where you were!”
    But I didn’t. It had been dark when we got there, and we were gone before dawn. I remembered how the barrels had rumbled and thumped, how the ship had sat still in the water like a frightened bird.
“Loading cargo in the dead of night,”
Captain Stafford had said. “
Skulking like thieves.”
And I wondered at how odd it was that out of the whole voyage, it was this particular night that caught the interest of Simon Mawgan.
    He came down beside me. We sat together above the surf and spray, at the brink of the cliff, and let the horse graze among tufts of grass at the edge of the freshet. Mawgan yawned. “This ship of yours,” he said. “The
Isle of Skye
. Who owns her?”
    I felt a shiver. What was he driving at? I said, “She was my father’s ship.”
    “Your father’s? I see.” He moved close beside me. “And where were you going with those barrels of wine?”
    “London.” I picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them one by one over the cliff. They fell forever, straight down to the angry sea. I threw six of them before Mawgan spoke again.
    “You would go in on the night tide? Is that it? He would be there at the wharf?”
    “No,” said I.
    “What then?”
    I tossed another pebble. “He was aboard.”
    And then Mawgan put his hand on my back, between the shoulders, as though he meant to push me over the edge. He said, “I suppose he drowned in the wreck.”
    I didn’t answer. I drew in a breath and shook all over. Mawgan’s hand pressed harder on my back, then suddenly fell away. He must have thought I was crying.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Well, I won’t ask you now. But later you’ll tell me. You’ll tell me the truth of all this.”
    I didn’t know what he meant. Did he know that my father was alive, or was he talking again about the barrels of wine? Whatever it was, I was happy to wait. He stepped into the saddle, and I cast the rest of the pebbles over the cliff, then climbed up behind him.
    The day was already late. Our shadows fell far to the east, racing ahead of us along the road, then swinging to our side when Mawgan turned the horse onto a cart path over the moor.
    It was a great, empty land that we crossed, but the path snaked in every direction, doubling back and turning again. To the west, the sky had become an ugly blue. And the shadows had darkened until it seemed that beyond each rise lay a vast, gloomy lake that engulfed us as we thundered down. I watched for the crows; I watched for Tommy Colwyn to come rising from the bogs with his eyes dangling at his cheeks. And I thought of my father, hidden away in a place known only to Stumps.
    Then, suddenly, Mawgan reined in the horse. “There’sGalilee,” he said in a solemn, quiet voice.